A Sussex company has developed a series of eco-friendly board games for children which aim to breed co-operation rather than competition.

Gaia Distribution in Hassocks is promoting the new breed of alternatives games designed to feed the mind rather than the pocket.

The firm works on the basis that every parent wants to instil in their child virtues like understanding, tolerance and sharing.

But when it comes to board games, such principles are often ditched and replaced by money-grabbing greed.

Children are raised in a culture of looking after number one. Almost unwittingly, parents encourage them into ruthless capitalism (Monopoly), world domination (Risk), wholesale destruction (Battleships) and cold-blooded murder (Cluedo).

Gaia hopes to encourage children to play by a different set of rules.

The people behind Gaia are Joe and Carme Brunner. They set up the company three years ago after travelling round the world.

While on the road they met a family in Australia who were disheartened by the type of games available and invented their own with environmental and ecological themes. Carme and Joe helped fund the first edition of Gaia's Garden, using recycled card and wood from sustainable forests. They then began looking for similar environmentally-friendly games and found like-minded companies in Switzerland and Canada.

The 12 games they now distribute are designed to be educationally sound.

And that can take some explaining. While the aim of Monopoly can be summed up in one sentence - get rich quick and bankrupt the competition - the rules for Gaia's Garden stretch to two pages.

Children also have to think through concepts like horticultural compatibility and ecological interdependence.

The most difficult idea to grasp is players are not given their own pieces. There are two dice - one showing which piece to move (gardener, pest or predator), the other determining how many spaces to advance along the garden path.

When you reach a paving stone next to soil, you can plant one of 48 vegetables from the nursery. But you must plant a species compatible with the one next to it.

Trouble arrives in the form of a slug taking up residence in the same patch. Then you need a bird to gobble up the pest.

The game ends when all the vegetables are planted or when the pests have wrecked the crops.

The rule book concludes: "In that case, no one individual player wins or loses the game and everybody is happy or disappointed with the work done."

Perhaps the biggest appeal for parents is that, because there are no 'winner takes all' rules, there are unlikely to be tears before bedtime.

Other games have familiar themes too. Tree Quartet is an ecological version of Happy Families. Mr Bun the Baker and his offspring become a group of maples.

The Cluedo alternative is Nature Detective in which you have to identify a mystery animal by piecing together the food it eats. Rather than Professor Plum in library with a dagger, it is squirrel in a tree with nuts.

The environmentally-sensitive version of Monopoly is Agropoly. The challenge here is to "manage land responsibly within the community and find the right relationship between supply and demand."

Another of the big sellers is Kumbuka, a memory game with motifs painted by African artists.

The latest game is Agua, a water-based game which will be out in the spring.

Carme, 40, a former music teacher, has been astounded by the success of their venture.

She said: "We always had faith in the games. There are many ecologically-conscious parents and there is so much rubbish for children."

Demand has been so great the company has run out of catalogues to send to potential customers.

They are also redesigning their web site to make ordering easier. The new site will be available in March or April.

Carme and Joe, 35, are passionate believers in respecting the planet and have followed the green road to a new home in Spain. They plan to return to Hassocks soon.

Gaia Distribution is at 79 Mackie Avenue, Hassocks. Call 01273 843901 or log on to www.gaiadistribution.com Their assistant Larissa Makila handles the Sussex end of the business.